



^^ 



Wjoc 



U'alAv. \%^^- 







THE POWER, DUTr, AND NECESSTTY OF DESTROYING 
IN THE REBEL STATES. 





S P E 


E C 


H 


HON. 


ISAAC N. 


ARNOL 




ILLINOIS 






DBUVERED 


I^V 


m ' 


THE HOUSE OF 


KEFliESENTATiVES, 




jA2ruA:Ri 


^ 6, 1864. 


f 




\ 



THE POWER, DUTY, AND NECESSITY OF DESTROYING SLAVERY IN THE 

REBEL STATES. 



SPEECH 

OF 

H(3N. ISAAC K ARNOLD, 

OF ILLINOIS. 



Delivered in the Souse of Beprcsentativcs Janttary C, 1SC4. 



Tlie House being in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, nnJ havino' 
under consideration the President's Proclamation, ilr. An.voLDsaid: 

Mr. Chairman, — In June, 1858, a comparatively unknown man uttered in 
the State-Iiouse at Springfield, Illinois, a sentiment which is already his- 
torical. Its philosophy, its profound sagacity, its prophetic prescience, its 
unparalleled boldness and honesty, were characteristic of the man who, then 
obscure, has become already, to-day, tho foremost character iu American 
history. The sentiment was this ; 

"A house divided ngainst itself cannot stand. I believe that this Government cannot 
permanently exist half slave and half free. ] dft not expect the Union to be dissolved ; I 
do not expect the house to fall ; but I expect it will cease to be divided." 

This, tho first emphatic enunciation of the philosophical fact of the antagon- 
ism between liberty and slavery, the eternal and "irrepressible " conflict 
between them, electrified the country, and made Abraham Lincoln President 
of the United States. 

The moment the fact is recognized that liberty and slavery are antagonistic, 
and that there can be no peace between them — that our country, all of it, 
must pass into the dark nii^ht of slavery, or all of it emerc^e into the clear licrht 
of freedom — all loyal, patriotic men become at once anti-slavery mcu— 
abolitionists. 

Such I avow myself here, to-day, and I shall deem it a proud distinction 
if I can merit the name by aiding in bringing about the entire abolition of 
slavery in my suffering country. 

And as, when in the palmy days of the Roman Republic, the people came 
to feel, by an instinctive conviction, that Carthage must be destroyed that 
Rome might live, so, to-day, the American people feci that slavery must die 
that liberty and the Union may live. '■^Delcnda cU Carthago" became then 



the motto of e.vsrj loyal, patriotic Roman. " Down with slavery " is becoming 
the motio of every loyal, patriotic American. 

As Roman constancj', courage and persistence finally triumphed over Car- 
thage, so will American constancy, courage and determination triumph over 
slavery. 

Wiien the Son of God proclaimed a common Father and the universal 
brotheihood of man, lie enunciated ihc great moral principle which brought 
on the irrr-pressible conflict with slavery. It is difficult, it seems to me, for a 
m?iii to recognize fully the truth of His teaching, in the light of this rebellion, 
without becoming an opponent of slavery. Just to the extent that Christianity 
prevails, slavery will disappear. The glorious light of Christianity must fade 
from the earth, or slavery cease. It is a relict of a barbarous and a savage 
age, and, thank God, it is melting rapidly away before the light of the nine- 
teenth century. 

TPIE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY. 

It would be a most interesting task to retrace the footprints of liberty, 
amidst the dust and rubbish which have gathered over the history of the past ; 
to follow the ofttimes obliterated pathway by which, since Christ's sermon on 
the mount, freedom regulated hy lato has been developed into its present 
majtistic and grand proportions. I hesitate not to affirm that all that there 
is which is valuable in republican and free institutions has its foundation in 
the sublime morality and broad humanity of the Bible. The glorious theme 
of man's struggle through the ages, for liberty, is yet to be wiiiten. His- 
torians have told us much of courts and camps, of the changes of dynasties, 
of battles by land and on the sea.; but who among them has traced the 
history of man's progress, and his struggles, through the ages, for " life, lib- 
erty, and the pursuit of happiness?" This history, even as presented by that 
nation and race most interesting to us — the English — has yet to be fully 
written. The historian has yet to write who has gone back and recorded for 
us the dawn of freedom among the early Saxons, its memorable triumj)h 
on the held of Runnymede, its struggles through the reigns of the Henrys and 
the Edwards, its fierce and bloody contest with Charles the First, the Round- 
Lead against the Cavalier ; thence to the Petition of Right, pausing with sad 
steps at the grave of Hampden and the scaffolds of Russell and Algernon Syd- 
ney ; thence to the Revolution of 1G38, the gradual but sure advance to the 
noble efforts of Fox and Erskine and Curran to secure freedom of speech, 
liberty of the press, and trial by jury, down to the crowning glory of the 
English constitution, when Lord Mansfield electrified the island of Great 
Britain by proclaiming, in the case of the negro Somerset, *' that slaves 
cannot breathe in England." 

God speed the hour when the Chief Justice of our land may truthfully 
announce the same fact. Then, and not till then, would I have crowned 



3 

the dome of tliis Cnpitol with the statue of Liberty. The f^rcnt EnnrUsh bare! 
who expiated a life of follies by giving himself a martyr to Greece, has said: 

" Freedom's battle, once begun, 
Bequenlhcd by bleeding sire to sod, 
Tliough b.ifTled oft, is ever won." 

The historian who writes the story of a man's progreF,3 from slavery and bar- 
barism to Christian civilizition and liberty, will find no more interesting page 
than that which is now being filled with the struggle in which we are engaged • 
none where the contest between liberty and slavery has been more clearly de- 
fined ; none upon a grander theater; none where the combatants, by their 
numbei-s, genius, ability, and heroism, have given more dignity and sublimity 
to the contest. 

WEAPONS OF FREEDOM. 

When, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln uttered the philosophic truth that freedom 
and slavery could not permanently exist together — that our country would be- 
come all free or all slave — he did not anticipate any but a moral conflict. The 
weapons by which he expected freedom to triumph were the weapons of truth 
and free discussion. Free speech, a free press, reason, the schoolmaster, the 
sermon, the lecture, the printing-press, the telegraph, the ballot : these were the 
agencies, the weapons, by whicU the battle was to be fought. It was with 
the ballot and not with bullets, the victory was expected to be won. The 
victory was won by these peaceful agencies in the election of Abraham Lin- 
coln as President. Slavery, conscious that it could not stand free discussion, 
that it must be destroyed if free speech and a free press were tolerated, ap- 
pealed fiom the ballot-box to the sword, and brought upon the country this 
terrible war. 

SLAVERY ML'ST DIE BY TIIF. LAWS OF WAR. 

Slavery having plunged the nation into this war, it is fit that it should die 
by the laws of war. Slavery stands before the world to day guilty of all the 
calamities of our country. Kvery dollar expenc'ed, every sufiering endured, 
every drop of blood sjjilled, every wound, and every death on every battle-field 
and in every hospital, is the penalty we pay for the existence and toleration of 
American slavery. 

It is to-day a rebel and a traitor. Let us declare it an outlaw under our 
Constitution and laws. 

There has never been a day since our existence as a nation when slavery was 
loyal to the Constitution and the Union. Now an open enemy, strikinir at tb« 
heart of the Republic, it has always been a plotting, stealthy, secret tr.titor, un- 
dermining the Constitution, and sapping the foundations of our liberties. 



INDICTMENT AGAINST SLAVERY. 

The counts of tlie indictment against slavery, were I to recapitulate its out- 
rages and its wrongs, from the organization of the Government do\Yn, would 
swell to voluracs. 

Tlie effects of slavery in retarding our national growth and prosperity are 
apparent at a glance. 
. The finest portion of our country, with the richest soil, situated in the most 
genial climate, has been blighted by this curse. Watered by navigable streams, 
rearer to the sun, with every element of prosperity and wealth showered upon 
it, yet poor, sparsely settled, with neither thrift, nor comfort, nor commerce, nor 
manufactures, nor culture, nor art, nor intelligence ; all because labor was not 
free. While sterile, rocky, cold, bleak, barren New England, under the influ- 
ence of free labor, smiles with abundant harvests, every valley blooms like a 
garden, every hill shelters a thriving village ; with every element of comfort, 
with a commerce whitening every sea, with skilled and intelligent labor, which 
sends its manuf^ictures to the uttermost parts of the earth. Why is this? Be- 
cause liberty dwells among the mountains of New England, and slavery blackens 
and desolates the sunny plains of the South. 

In the one you find the happy home, the school-house, the church, the lyceum, 
the newspaper, the railroad, the telegraph ; and everywhere domestic comfort 
and domestic virtue, refinement, culture, the arts, taste, Christian civilization in 
its highest foims. In the other, you find the great plantation, the slave-pen, 
squalor, poverty, misery ; in place of the school-house, the slave-market, where 
children, boys, and girls, are bought and sold ; ignorance, brutality ; without 
art, without literature, without inventions, or labor-saving machinery ; every- 
where slavery operating as a moral blight, an intellectual extinguisher, reducing 
rapidly a once noble people into barbarism. Such are the results of slavery. 
These results as naturally follow free labor, and the degradation of labor, as that 
the summer produces fruit and the winter destroys it. 

All history demonstrates that the feet that are fettered, and the hands that 
are manacled, cannot contend with those that are fiQQ. The hand that is en 
slaved produces no work of merit. The brain that conceives and the hand that 
executes all great things must be free. 

God has established the great law of compensation, that true national greatness 
can never grow up from wrong and wickedness, and we behold to-day in 
our country its most striking illustration. 

All history teaches that ignorance, vice, pauperism, and barbarism are the 
natural and inevitable results of the degradation of labor. It is quite time to 
cut loose this millstone from about our necks. 

SLAVERY BECAME MASTEIl OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 

Slavery having, in an unfortunate moment, been tolerated by the framers of 
our Constitution, under the mistaken belief that it would be but a temporary 



evil, soon aspired to and became the master of the Government. Havinj^ 
intrenched itself in the very citadel of political power, conscioua of il8inherea;t 
weakness, it demanded additional territory for its expansion, first Louisiana, then 
Florida, then Texas. These territories, vast enough for an empire, having 
been secured, slavery then demanded the repeal of the Missouri line, that it 
might carry its curse North as well as South and West. | 

Why need I remind the people of the perfidious rei)eal of the ^lissouri coni- 
promise, showing the slaveholder's promise in this instance to bo as sarred 
as a gambler's word or a secessionist's oath? The story of the sublime 
struggle in Kansas, between fraud and violence and oulnigo on one side, and. 
heroic firmness on the other, has not faded from the memory of the people 
Her prairies, red with the blood of tho martyrs to liberty, her vallejs, blac|: 
with the cinders of her burned and devastated towns and villages attest alike the 
devotion of her people to liberty and the savage barbarity of her enemies. Ail 
honor to Kansas! She was, indeed, the rock against which the turbulent 
waves of violence rolled in vain. Single-handed she successfully resisted the 
slave power backed by the Federal Government. 

Up to this period of the struggle, the career of the slaveholders in their lust 
of domination had met with no serious check. Slavery was absolute on the 
bench of the Supremo Court; it dictated in the national councils; it furni.siied 
the Presidents, or designated the most subservient tool it could purchase amci!;^ 
its Northern sycophants to occupy the Execulive Mansion. It was a ruler in the 
Halls of Congress. The Army and the Navy, with West Point and lh« 
Naval School as its nurseries — the training from which yet lingers — were its 
right and left hand to carry out its purposes. The national treasure, collected 
in large proportion at the North, was expended mainly at the South and to fill 
the pockets of slaveholders. The qualitications for your representatives abroad 
were fealty to slavery. Every new Territory was filled with the minions of this 
slave power, and was as regularly trained up to the interests of slavery as the 
proteges of Jefferson Davis in military life were trained to his will. 

QUESTIONS or PEACE AND WAR, OF FORF.IGN AND DOMESTIC POLICY, CO>i- 
TROLLED AND SHAPED BY i^LAVEIIOLDERS. 

The slaveholder held the purse and the sword ; he was king at the White 

House, a ruler here in this Hall, a de?pot in the Senate, and everywhere a 
tyrant. ' 

Such was the position of the slaveholder in 1858. 

SLAVERY HAD REVOLUTIONIZED THE GOVERNMENT AND DESTROYED THE i 
PRINCIPLES OF LIBERTY. l 

Meanwhile slavery had revolutionized the Government. The great principles' 
of Magna Charta and tho Declaration of Independence had ceased to havef* 
practical existence in a large part of the Union. Liberty of speech, freedom of 
the press, and trial by jury had, to a great extent, disappeared in the slave 



States. Indeed, that portion of the so-called Republic had ceased to be a 
government of law, and had becomeja government of a tyrannic, cruel oligarchy, 
more odious, despicable and cruel than any on earth. There was no redress for 
any outrage, however cruel, if perpetrated in behalf and at the behest of 
slavery. The vengeance of the slaveholder against the man who spoke or 
published in behalf of liberty was sharp, speedy, and unrelenting. The 
bowie-knife and the bludgeon, the halter, atd even the stake, were the in- 
struments of violence and torture resorted to by lynch judges who found 
any bold enough to question the divinity of the " peculiar institution." In 
the slave States of this Union an anti slavery man had no rights which a 
slaveholder felt bound to respect. In those States the Constitution had disap- 
peared. I say, then, that slavery had established a revolution in the slave 
States, overturned a republican form of government and established a despotism 
in its place. 

The degeneracy and barbarism produced by slavery are strikingly illuslra- 
ted by Viiginia. Before the rebellion a chief source of her weath was in 
the cargoes and coffles of men, women, and children she raised and sent to 
the Gulf Stales for sale. Some years she exported her forty and fifty thou- 
sand ; and this was done without a blush in the grand old CoraQ:ionweallh of 
Virginia — the land of Washington, the mother of statesmen ! 

Let us pause a moment, Mr. Chairman, and contemplate the saddest 
Spectacle of all this war — Virginia as she is to-day. She was worthy of 
Ler early pre-eminence. Iler early history was brilliant indeed. Washington, 
Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Madison, and Marshall, all men of whom any nation 
might be proud. There is something grand and majestic in the physical con- 
formation of the old Commonwealth. With the Alleghanies and the Blue 
Ridge running through her entire extent, she seems fashioned for the abode 
of freemen. When we remember that her greatest writer penned the Decla- 
ration of Independence and the Ordinance of 1787, and that he declared that 
in a contest between her slaveholders and their slaves the Almighty had no at- 
tribute which would take sides with the master ; and when we look upon her 
to day, and see to what slavery has reduced the proud old Commonwealth, itis 
indeed the saddest spectacle of the war. She is being purged as with fire ; she 
ivill pass through this agony, and come out of it restored, cmancipated» 
disenthralled, and regenerated. Once more shall she be hailed as the mother 
of States — free States — and statesmen. Mount Vernon and Monticello will 
again become the Meccas of the American patriot. Through the d^rk clouds 
vhich now envelop her the bow of promise shall reappear ; that bow shall rest 
upon liberty. When she shall have passed through this agony, jmd shall arise 
freed and regenerated, when her every petty tyrant shall have been detlironed, 
then will her stern old motto " Sic semper ti/rannib-^'^ have a new and glorious 
significance. 

In view, then, of all the curses which slavery has inflicted upon the country, 



I impeach American slavery "before tlae American people and tbeir Congress, 
and demand whether it shall still live. 

I charge slavery with treason and with murder; I charge it with the murder 
of every Union soldier who has been sacrificed since the rebels fired upon Fort 
Sumter; I charge it with the assassination of Ellsworth and Lyon and Baker 
and McCook, and the whole army of martyrs who have been perfidiously slain 
by slaveholders since they began the rebellion; I charge it with a conspiracy to 
undermine and subvert the liberties and Constitution of my country, to erect a 
despotism upon its ruins; I charge slavery with the death of all those who have 
fallen in this war. It has dug the half million of graves for patriots and rebejs 
made by this war ; and those who sleep there would, but for this cursed institu- 
tion, to-day be living in peace and fraternity. 

In the name, then, of these dead, in the name of the widows and orphans 
thus created, in the name of our country which it has der-olated, in the name of 
t]]e Constitution which it has sought to overthrow, I demand the abolition of 
American slavery. 

YOU CAN HAVE NO PEACE WniLE SLAVERY EXISTS. 

You can have no permanent peace while slavery lives. A truce you might 
have, possibly, until it could recover its power ; but peace, never. Vour contest 
with it is to the death. Your implacable enemy now reels and staggers. Strito 
the decisive blow. You could not if you would, and you ought not if you 
could, make terms of compromise with slavery. You have abolished it at this 
capital. Your have forever prohibited it in all your Territories. Your Gov- 
ernment has hung a man for participating in the slave trade. You have ad- 
mitted West Virgisiia free. You have acknowledged the independeJice of 
Ilayli. You have enlisted, and are enlisting, African soldiers; they have car- 
ried your banner bravely and triumphantly on many hard fought fields. You 
have [)lt'dged your faith to ihein, to the world, and to God, that they shall bo 
free. You have crowned the dome of your Capitol with Liberty. At your 
call Missouri is throwing ofif the incubus of slavery. Maryland shouts back, 
through the ballot-box, her joyous answer that she, too, is to be free. Dela- 
ware, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana will not linger. Your Presi- 
dctit, in a proclamation of emancipation, which, while it has revolutionized tho 
public sentiment and the action of Europe, has secured victory to our arms, has 
proclaimed liberty and emancipation throughout the territory in rebellion. 

Uere, then, we are on the eve of univei-sal emancipation. We cannot go 
back, and we must not halt. Slavery must die. The sooner it dies, the sooner 
we shall have peace. 

HOW SHALL SLAVERY BE EXTERMINATED ? ' 

First, I reply, in the border States, by the action of the States themselves. 
This action will be speedy and decisive. 



8 

Second. In all the territory in rebellion, slavery has been already substan- 
tially abolished by the proclamation of emancipation. Confirm by Congress 
this proclamation, prohibit the re-establishment of slavery, and abolish it in that 
part of the rebel States not included in the prockmation. 

Third. Slavery being thus everywhere abolished, amend the Constitution, 
prohibiting its re-establishment or existence in every part of the United States. 

Has Congress the power to confirm, sanction, and carry out the proclamation 
of emancipation, and prohibit slavery in all that portion of the United States 
designated therein ? 

WHAT POWER HAS CONGRESS OVER SLAVERY I^T TIMS OF WAR? 

I claim that the Government has the power in time of war, as a war measure, 
to abolish slavery wherever and whenever it may be necessary to secute the 
success of the war. 

It is a principle in the interpl-etation of statutes and constitutions, familiar to 
lawyers, that, to determine their meaning, you may look into and consider their 
preamble. This is, indeed, usually the key to the instrument. It states the ob- 
ject sought to be attained by the statute ; and it would be strange, if the pre- 
amble recites that the Constitution was ordained to accomplish a certain specified 
purpose, if the power to accomplish that purpose is not found in the Constitu- 
tion. Now, the preamble to the Constitution recites that the people, " in order 
to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
vide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 
ings of liberty, &c., ordain and establish this Constitution," &c. 

For thd purpose of securing these ohjects a Government was established, 
clothed with powers adequate, as was supposed, to accomplish these purposes. 
Now, if a permanent and perfect union between free and slave States has been 
demonstrated to be impossible, may not the obstacle to such union be removed ? 
If justice cannot be established while slavery exists, shall not slavery cease ? 
Has Congress the constitutional power to insure domestic tranquillity ? I sub- 
mit to the candid and thoughtful men of all parties, whether, in the light of the 
history of the past, the endless controversies and dissensions, from the Missouri 
question down to the civil war in Knnsas, the riols and outrages caused by 
slavery, culminating in this terrible rebellion and bloody war, whether domestic 
tranquillity is attainable while slavery exists? If not, may not this domestic 
tranquillity be insured by removing the disturbing cause ? If, indeed, there is 
no medicine for this evil, if this vicious element may not be removed, then the 
founders of the Government established the Constitution to insure tranquillity 
without the power to accomplish the oVject. 

Among the enumerated objects of the Constitution was to provide for the 
public defense. Assuming the fact that slavery is a source of weakness and 
danger to us, and would afford aid and strength to a foreign or domestic enemy, 



can we provide for tLe common defense by removing tte danger ? If a city 
charter vested in the corporate body the power to provide for the common de- 
fense, and a magazine of powder should be established in a populous district, 
would any lawyer doubt the power of the corporation to cause its removal ? If 
a dangerous and contagious disease should spring up, would the power to 
cause its, removal be questioned ? If a pestilence-breeding nuisance existed, 
could it be removed and its cause be prohibited ? 

Again, the Constitution was ordained to promote the general welfare, and to 
secure to us and to our posterity the blessings of liberty. Suppose experience 
has demonstrated that we cannot have prosperity, nor the blessings of liberty, 
without extirpating slavery. Suppose the census tables demonstrate that slavery 
is the great obstacle to our progress ; that free labor will produce double that 
of slave labor ; that with free labor you will have national prosperity, wealth, 
every element of greatness; that with freedom you will have education, arts, 
science, civilization, religion ; while with slavery you have ignorance, brutality, 
vice, barbarism : can we, under a Constitution formed with the avowed object 
of promoting the general welfare, promote it by abolishing slavery ? Suppose 
it to be demonstrated that liberty and slavery are incompatible, and that unless 
you destroy slavery, slavery will destroy freedom and republican government, 
can you secure the blessings of liberty to yourselves and your posterity by de- 
stroying slavery ? 

THE POWZR TO aOYERN THAT PORTION OF THE UNION IN REBELLION MUST 
BE IN THS NATIONAL GOVERNilENT SO LONG AS REBELLION ESISIS. 

There is to-day no government in that portion of the United States in rebel- 
lion, except the National Government. Until it is restored to the Union, the 
power to govern it must exist somewhere. Where is it ? I say, in the Presi- 
dent and in Congress. 

That is a part of our country. The United States — the nation— has guaran- 
tied to it a republican form of government. None exists there to day. Jeffer- 
son Davis has established a despotism there. That despotism must be crushed, 
and a republican government established. Everything needful to that end the 
President and Congress may rightfully do. The power to establish all needful 
rules and regulations, and make all laws necessary to the restoration of a govern- 
ment republican in form, must exist in the National Government. 

I do not choose to theorize about State suicide, nor whether the rebel States 
are in the condition, in every respect, of Territories. I call attention to the fact 
that there is no government in this rebel territory, except the despotism of Jef- 
ferson Davis. There is no State government there. There is no republican 
government there. The loyal citizens of that part of the Union call upon us to 
fulfil the constitutional guarantee of giving them a republican form of govern- 
ment. 



10 



"Whatever it is necessary to do, to execute in their favor this constitutional 
guarantee, Congress and the President may rightfully do. The right to crush 
armed resistance to the Constitution and laws, and for Congress to make and 
the President to execute such laws as will result in the establishment of a re- 
publican government, is then clear. But this right to coerce into subjection, 
and govern until obedience and loyalty shall resume their sway, all territory 
and States in rebellion, is not left to inference, nor is it dependent only on those 
parts of tho Constitution to which atention has already been called. The 
Constitution also provides that " Congress shall have power to provide for the 
common defense and tho general welfare." 

Congress also has power " to make all laws which shall be necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 
vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any 
department or officer thereof." 

Now, the President is an officer of the United States, the Commander-in- 
Chief of its armies, and it is his duty to suppress rebellion, repel invasion, and 
maintain the Constitution everywhere in the Union, and carry out the guarantee 
to each State of a republican form of government ; and ihis he is to do, when 
necessary, by force, by war, subject to the laws of war; and Congress has full 
power to make all laws necessary and proper to carry out, and into full execu- 
tion, these war powers of the Government, including the well-established 

BELLIGERENT RIGHT OP EMANCIPATING SLAVES. 

If slavery is the corner-stone of rebellion, can not the corner-stone be consti- 
tutionally knocked out ? If slavery is the cause of the war, giving strength to 
our enemies ; if it feeds and clothes their armies, and keeps them in the field, 
and enables them to keep up their power; and if the President, or Congress, or 
both acting together, by freeing them, can deprive the rebels of this power, and 
bring their freed slaves to our side, and thus provide for the common defense, 
and thus restore the Union and a republican .government to the loyal men of 
the rebel States, is not tho right to do this clear and indisputable ? If we have 
not this right, then is the Government without the means of self-preservation. 

The Constitution provides that " the United States shall guarantee to every 
State in this Union a republican form of government.'' Congress has the power 
to do everything necessary to make good that guarantee. If the emancipation 
of slaves in the rebel States will tend to the establishment of a republican form 
of goveriunent in the State in rebellion, who can deny the power to emanci- 
pate ? The government, so called, existing de facto, in the States in rebellion, 
is in antagonism to the republican government the Constitution requires the 
nation to guarantee. It is the right and the duty of the Government to destroy 
that usurped and rebellious dc facto government, and establish a republican gov- 
ernment in its place. In accomplishing this, if slavery stands in the way, may 



11 



it not bo removed out of the way ? Congress, under this constitutional provision, 
has the power, and it is its duty, to make war upon the ai)ti-repul;lican 
government now usurping power in the rebel States. It has all the power to 
make that war effective. Has the Government the right to make war, wiihouk 
the right to use the means to make the war effective? Can the Government 
declare war, and is this a mere barren riglit? No, this Government, having the 
right to carry on the war, possesses all the powers known to civilized nations to 
make war effective, and among these powers is the right to emancipate slaves. 

I ask gentlemen this question. Jeff. Davis has made war upon our country, 
attempted to set up upon our soil a rebellious government, attacked our capital, 
and now holds a portion of these States under a despotic tyranny. In making 
war upon him to subdue him, to re-establish our authority, and fulfil the guar- 
antee of a republican form of government, can our Government do all that one 
nation can do when at war with another under the rules of war? Surely this 
will not be denied. This brings us to the inquiry whether the emancipation of 
the slaves of the enemy is or is not a recognized mode of carrying o!» modern 
warfare. Let us see. The end we are seeking to accomplish is to crush the 
rebellion. The abolition of slavery tends directly to the accomplishment of 
that end, and as effectually as to subdue the rebel armies in the field. Without 
tlieir slaves the rebel armies could not long exist. Emancipation not only de- 
priv«.^s the rebels of the means of supporting their armies, but it is the most 
efficient means of bringing the force and power of four millions of people to 
our side. 

Now, the end we are seeking, to wit, the destruction of the rebel power, being 
legitimate, and " within the scope of the Constitution," to use the language of 
Chief Justice Marshall, all means which arc appropriate and plainly adapted to 
the end, and which are not prohibited by the Constitution, are lawful. [4 
Wheaton's Rep ,421.] I assert, without fear of contradiction, that the emanci- 
pation of the slaves of an enemy is a well-recognized belligerent right, and 
would not be questioned by any well-informed person if we were at war with 
Spain, Brazil, or any other nation holding slaves. lias not our Government 
the same belligerer>t riglits against the infamous traitor Davis as it would have 
against a recognized nation ? Are the rebels less public enemies because they are 
traitors also? Can we do that to a public enemy which we cannot do 
to a public enemy and a traitor? In the case of Iliawatha, it has been 
distinctly decided by the Supreme Court that the United States have 
all the belligerent rights against the rebels. If, then, the emancipation 
of slaves is a belligerent right, that right exists in the Government; it may 
be exercised by the President, as it has been by the proclamation of eraaHci- 
pation. It exists in Congress, to be exercised, if expedient, by emancipating 
slaves and prohibiting slavery in all the territory in rebellion. The right to 
emancipate slaves has been so generally recognized as a belligerent right that it 
will scarcely be questioned. This power was exercised by Great Britain in the 
revolutionary war, and in the war of IS 12 and the right to exercise it was 



13 



admitttd by General Wasbington, and Mr, Jefferson, and not controverted by 
any. 

Mr. Jefferson says Virginia lost thirty thousand slaves under Cornwallis, and 
if the slaves had been taken "to give them freedom it would have been right." 
The statement and argument of John Quincy Adams on this subject have never 
been successfully answered ; 

" I lay this down as the law of nations. I say that nailitary authority takes, for the 
time, the place of all municipal institutions, and slavery among the rest; and that, under 
that state of things, so far from its being true that the States where slavery exists have 
the exclusive management of the suhject, not only the President of the United States, but 
the Commander of the Army has power to order the universal emancipation of the 
SLAVES," * * * '. From the instant that the slaveholding States become the theatre 
of a war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of Congress extend 
to interference with the institution of slavery, in. every way in which it can be interfered 
with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of States 
burdened with slavery to a foreign Power." * * * * "It is a war 

power. I say it is a war power; and when 3'our country is actually in war, whether it 
be a war of invasion or a war of insun-ection, Congress has power to carry on the war, 
and munt carry it 07i, according to the laws of loar ; and by the laws of war an invaded 
country has all its laws and municipal institutions swept by the board, and martial poioer 
takes the place of them. When two hostile armies are set in martial array, the com- 
manders of both armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in the invaded terri- 
tory." 

The great error in the public mind on this subject arises from applying the 
provisions designed to protect citizens in times of peace to traitors in time of 
war. 

The provision that no person shall bo deprived of life without due process of 
law, does not make it illegal or unconstitutional to kill rebels on the field of 
battle. Neither do the provisions in regard to the security of property, or claim 
to service, make it unconstitutional, under the war power, to deprive rebels of 
their slaves. A claim to service for years, as an apprentice, is discharged by 
the apprentice's entering the army. Congress may discharge from tliis service 
in order to raise troops. Congress may emancipate all slaves to raise troops. 
If it can discharge a claim to service for years under the war power, can it not 
discharge a claim for service for life ? If the nation is entitled to the military 
service of all able-bodied men, including apprentices held to service for years, 
is it not entitled to the service of all black or white men held for life? 

Can Congress, by law, discharge one and not the other ? 

As against the right to military service, is the claim of the master to the ser- 
vice of a slave better or more sacred than that of a master to the service of an 
apprentice, or of a father to the service of his child? The Government can 
take my son and your apprentice ; can it not tnke your slave ? In case of a 
foreign war, could not the Government conscript every able-bodied slave? Can 



13 



it not do the same in a domestic war against traitors ? Then it seems clear to 
demonstration that the Governmerit m.ay emancipate slaves. 

The power, then, being clear, in the name of liberty, and of justice and 
humanit}^ let it be exercised. Proclaim "liberty througliout the land to all 
the inhabitants thereof." 

Let us build upon this rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us, 

I cannot close without otTering ray tribute of homnge to that great man who 
has given to the institution of slavery the hardest blows it has ever received. 
Let Abraham Lincoln finish the great work he has begun. 

The great objects of his life are to crush the rebellion and eradicate slavery. 
His ambition is to live on the page of history as the restorer of the Union, the 
emancipator of his country. For these great ends he has labored and toiled 
through difficulties and obstacles fully known only to himself and to God. 

The year that has just closed will live as the year of the proclamation of 
emancipation. This act the President declared was sincerely believed to be an 
act of justice, vrarranted by the Constitution upon military necessity ; and he 
invoked for it the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of 
Almighty God. It will mark an era in modern civilization as clearly as the 
Declaration of Lidependence, or the acquisition of Magna Charta. By history 
it will be regarded as a great act of humanity and justice. As a matter of 
State policy, its wisdom has already been vindicated. This proclamation, by 
presenting our national struggle as a clearly-defined contest between liberty and 
slavery, changed the attitude of Europe towards us. Under its influence and 
the victories achieved under its auspices, all fear of foreign intervention has dis- 
appeared. Since the day of its issue no more Floridas have sailed from British 
water. England's broad arrow arrests the rebel rams being fitted out in her 
harbors. Louis Napoleon, follov,'ing the example of Great Britain, arrests the 
rebel gunboats in the waters of France. Lord Lyons now rises with alacrity 
to warn Mr. Seward of a rebel plot in Canad?i. 

With liberty and union thus written by the President's own hand upon our 
national banner, we have had Gettysburg, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Knoxville 
and Chattanooga. 

It h.-is been the fortune of the President to have his leading measures, how- 
ever severely censured at the time of their adoption, always approved within a 
twelvemonth afterwards. The Emancipation Proclamation and employment of 
negroes as soldiers are striking examples. Let those who deny his statesman- 
ship, or who question his sagacity, note this fact. His magnanimity has no 
parallel. lie has borne censure and denunciation for acts for which others were 
responsible, with a generosity which has extorted from his rivals the declara- 
tion, "Of all men, Mr. Lincoln is the must unselfish." The great fault of his 
administration, the too tardy removal of incompetent men, has arisen from a 
scrupulous care to be just. 

I ask the ardent and impatient fi lends of freedom to put implicit faith in 



u 

Abraham Lincoln. Remember he lives for the restoration of the Union and tho 
abolition of slavery. If you deem Lim slow, or if you think he has made mis- 
takes, remember how often time has vindicated his wisdom. 

One of the most striking and gratifying vindications of the policy and char* 
acter of President Lincoln is to be found in the reply of Count Gasparin and 
his associates to the letter of the National Loyal League of New York. 

Those distinguished statesmen and scholars — calm and truthful observers — in 
their letter f^xhibit by contrast the injustice which has been done the President 
by some of the zealous abolitionists of America. They say : 

"We, gentlemen, are abolitionists; and we declare that we have never hoped nor 
wished for a moie steady, rapid, atid resolute progress. We have understDod the diffi- 
culties v«h;ch surrounded Mr. Lincoln. We have honored his scruples of conscience wiih 
regard to the Ci)n?titution of his country which stopped his path. We have admired the 
couiageoUft good sense with which he moved straighten, the instant he could so do with- 
out danger to his cause or violation of the law,'' 

At the snme time they say, with a perfect conviction, that the destruction of 
slavery is the salvation of our country. 

" We hold it to be of the first importance that the cause of the war shall not 
survive the war; that your real enemy, slavery, shall not remain upon the field." 

The masses of the people everywhere trust and love the President. They 
know his hands are clean and his breast is pure. The people knov/ that tho 
devil has no bribe big enough, no temptation of gold, or place, or power, which 
can seduce the honest heart of Abraham Lincoln. They know that while ho is 
President there is no danger of a coup cfetal. Let him exercise whatever ex- 
traordinary jKjwers the public safety may require, the people instinctively feel 
that their liberties and laws are safe in his hands. They sleep soundly, with no 
disturbing apprehensions, while he holds the rein?. Lnpetuous, eager, impa- 
tient men call him slow, over-cautious, wanting in energy. Remember the 
times in which we live ; remember the danger of reckless energy, of unscrupu- 
lous will and passion. 

You have a Chief Magistrate of clean hands and pure heart; sagacious, tlrm, 
upiight and true. Somewhat rude and rough, it may be, but under this rough 
exterior you have the real and true hero. If he is a diamond in the rough, ho 
is, nevertheless, real, with no false glitter or garish j)retonsion. You have in 
him a man of that sobriety, of that self command, of that freedom from passion, 
of that justice and truth, of that soundness of judgment and perfect rectitude of 
intention, that has had, in all these attributes, no parallel since the days of 
Washington. 

Taking the last five eventful years, and Mr. Lincoln has exerted a greater in- 
fluence upon the popular heart and in forming public opinion, than any other 



15 



man. If slavery now reels and staggers in its last struggles, it is from wounds self- 
inflicted, and the blows it has received at hh hands. His speeches and wiilings, 
plain, homely, and unpolished as they sometimes are, have become the household 
words of the people, and crystallized into the ovDrwhehning public sentiment 
which demands the extinction of slavery. 

lie is a radical — a radical from conviction, not from passion, or hatred, or 
revenge. In all great radical changes, in running round sharp curves, is it not 
better to put on the brakes sometimes, rather than to run off the track and 
smash up the train ? 

There are always men who are loud, boisterous, furious, intolerant, proscrip- 
tivo, and cruel, whose hearts are filled with hatred and malice, and who, to 
eradicate one evil, arc willing to tear up the good which it has taken ages to 
secure. Such was not the example set by the greatest reformer and most rad- 
ical teacher who ever appeared on earth, the Son of God. Mr. Lincoln's whole 
theory as a reformer is to do the greatest possible amount of good with tho 
least possible evil. Were he more violent, more carelessly destructive, did he use 
more violent words, lie might be perhaps more tho po[)ular idol, but less tho 
statesman and the Christian. This great statesman, this simple, unpretending 
man, I believe to be the instrument raised up by God to work out the regen- 
cruiion of the nation hy the death vf American slavery. 




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